Tag: Weegonza Bazaar

I don’t really know how to herd cats. I do know that doing what we do is challenging when you have…..studio cats! Nothing quite like trying to take photos with a feline photobombing your product photography. Or trying to get your attention by hiding the keyboard…

Like so:

I’m sorry, did you need this?

Or stealing your chair:

You may have your seat when I’m done!

Or getting ready for a product photo shoot:

This is my spot now, find your own. #tortitude

I do love our cats, even though I spend more time than one would think washing acrylic paint out of tails and pulling cat hair out of resin (how in the hell does cat hair get INTO a sealed container?! If we could figure that out, I bet we’d be that much closer to faster than light travel!)

I love them so much in fact that we’re trying to figure out a way to take them on the road with us when we travel. That would involve a camping trailer of some sort I’m sure. I’m sketching ideas in my copious free time (HA!). If any of you on the interwebs travel with cats, let me know how you do it!

Enough about my hellish felines. Working feverishly around them to create new art, we’re gearing up for quite a few shows!

August 30th-September 3rd: CoKoCon, at the DoubleTree by Hilton in Phoenix, Arizona. Harry Turtledove is the Author GoH, Steve Rude is the Artist GoH. Local Author GoH is Beth Cato, Filk GoH will be Cheshire Moon. Eric Wile is the Gaming GoH.

October 13th & 14th: Sinister Creature Con, Scottish Rite Center, Sacramento, California. This is gonna be a gas! Weegonza Bazaar and Left Hand Asylum will be packing the van (her name is Elvira) and heading back to Sacramento! We had so much fun in June, and met so many cool people! We can’t wait! Lots of cool guests including Ray Wise! He’s one of my favorite “That guys”.

November 24th-25th: Reid Park Holiday Art Festival, Reid Park, Tucson, Arizona. We’ll be at tent #80. There will be lots of local artists and makers here to find that something special for the people on your holiday list.

January 5th-6th: Retro City Fest, LA Fairplex, Pomona, California. Now this, my fellow pinball and art junkies is so very exciting! An entire hall of the LA Fairplex filled with pinball machines, cabinet arcade games, (both of which are set to free play!), console tournaments, vintage gaming, table top gaming, art, makers, coders, CosPlayers, collectors, OH MY! For TWO WHOLE DAYS! We had so much fun last year, we got a BOOTH for 2019! That’s right! 100 square feet of cool art just for you! Booth location information coming soon!

At the end of May we did Phoenix Comic Fest now Phoenix Fan Fusion. Say what you want, but we always have a great time! Lots of people to talk to and make stuff for. I think it’s a well organized Con. You can actually talk to someone face to face if you have a problem. They are friendly, professional, and very approachable.

Didn’t get a chance to take many photos, but we did get to snap one before we opened of our new Artist Alley set up (when space permits). It worked out fairly well, I just have to figure out how to let people know that I want them to come in without telling them. It’s a work in progress.

The only downside to doing an enormous con like this is that there are so many people to talk to, sometimes you don’t pay as much attention as you should, and a piece of your art walks away. It’s the cost of doing business, folks are going to steal for whatever reason, you just have to try to be positive about it. I’ve learned to tell myself “Well, it was cool enough to steal.” Seriously, there’s nothing you can do about it really if you don’t see it happen (Gods forbid I SEE anyone stealing from us).

All that being said, someone stole one of my husband’s art dolls that he makes by hand. One of these sweet little guys:

I’m used to having earrings, or a necklace, even a tin being stolen every now and again, but you stole something my husband made. By hand. That he designed. From his heart. That he loved. Not to mention the sale of which would have put food on our table.

He was heartbroken. He said “I hope he went to a good home.” I was fucking furious. To. Say. The. Least. I kinda showed my ass on social media, but I don’t care. It made him so sad that he “lost” one. I yelled a bit, probably dropped a few f bombs in front of customers. So, if you were anywhere near our table in Artist Alley and had to listen to me go off, I apologize. XD

Other than that it was an AWESOME show! We were lucky enough to be next to my friend Sue at Alikat Designs! We got to BS all weekend and there was much merriment, and winnings of bets 😉

After Phoenix Comic Fest, I had about a week and a half to make more art for Sinister Creature Con in Sacramento California. It was my first horror con. It was also my first show by myself. The other half of WGB had a wedding shoot in the mountains that weekend. Which wasn’t bad because this half of WGB is absolutely and completely terrified of heights. Like ugly cry terrified.

I love road trips. Like seriously love them. Some of my best childhood memories are of road trips with my family. So, when my friends told me, about 6 hours outside of Sacramento, that they didn’t understand how I could drive long haul like I was doing. I couldn’t really explain. Except to say that long distance driving for me is a physical and emotional pleasure. Everything looks different moment to moment, and you have to pay attention or you’ll miss something. I enjoy that kind of focus so I can let my subconscious chew on whatever it needs too. It’s kind of liberating. I dunno, it cleans my brain.

So we get to town, check into our hotel, got groceries, ate and went to bed. We woke up butt-early and got to the venue at 6am. Our desert eyes were blinded by the varied shades and hues of green. We drove over a river. A river with water in it. We lost our collective shit. It was a beautiful ride in.

We get out of the van and are smacked in the face with the beautiful scent of magnolias. The blooms were the size of dinner plates.

The people at Sinister Creature Con have a tight, well run ship. Seriously. Check in and Load in was a breeze. The Main Vendor Hall ( I didn’t get to see the 2nd Vendor Room till the end) was well laid out. Tables spaces were ROOMY! It was really nice.

I set up my table and arranged my wares:

The attendees are the nicest bunch of humans as I’ve come across in a long time. I do a lot of Cons, Street Fairs and the like. People in general are nice, friendly even. These people were super nice, interesting and interested. It was a really cool group of people.

It was kind of mind blowing with the CosPlayers that were terrifying. Here are some of the scariest clowns I’ve ever scene in my life (I hate clowns) but the sweetest people were under the masks and make up.

We drove back Monday morning and for some reason it took longer to get back. Oh, yeah….we hit the beginning of rush hour:

It gave us lots of time to discuss strategies for next time! October we’ll be heading back to Sinister Creature Con! WOOT!

The day after we got back I cleaned my studio, and started on a project that I’ve needed to sit down and do for months; update my Etsy Store and web store. I haven’t added any listings in forever, and I’m going to have to work my ass off to get my old customers interested again and snagging the attention of new ones. I’m up to the challenge.

Keep checking my Etsy site and the WGB Store here every few days! They’ll be new pieces every couple of days!

I think we’ll be heading to Vegas for a couple of days in July to check out gallery space and possible consignment venues. Most of July is dedicated to making the items you see in our pop up shop, available online.

First, we’d like to say a big thank you to the communities of Thatcher and Safford that came out to the Gila Valley Comic Con! We had such a great time and you guys are awesome! Everyone was very welcoming and friendly! Thanks for hosting such a great event! We’ll see you guys again for the 2nd annual Gila Valley Comic Con.

Now, we’re really excited to be able to continue our participation in First Fridays Las Vegas! We’ve met some of the coolest folks and have a great time doing it. We’ll be there again April 6th, and May 4th!

We’re very excited to set up our shop for the First Annual San Diego Rocket Con, April 28th at the Scottish Rite Event Center! You should totally come out! It’s gonna be a gas!

We also get to set up at the Carlsbad Village Fair on May 6th! We are looking forward to the new event and new folks to meet!

We’ll be bringing new jewelry and boxes to all these events! Be sure to follow us on Instagram to be the first to see new works in progress!

We’re also working feverishly on making everything that you see in our pop-up shop at shows available to you here in our online shop. Sign up for our mailing list to get the heads up on new pieces before anyone else!

We are still maintaining a presence on Etsy; although the bulk of our art and jewelry will be here.

And remember, if you see anything you like at one of our shows, but were unable to get it then, and can’t find it in our shop, just email us and we’ll make it available for you!